Molemolemolemolemole

This might make you start reminiscing about the guy with the mole in Austin Powers, but mole (pronounced mol-ay) is also the name of a sauce that originated in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca. Or family of sauces really - mole covers anything that is made using ingredients ground together.

I'm sure once upon a time these were made in backbreaking sessions with the mortar and pestle but these days, its all about the blender. Every Mexican home has one, and they are constantly whirring, making salsas, moles, soups, refried beans and desserts.

Besides the mole, Oaxaca has its own family of cheeses - a fresh, stringy kind and one that looks and tastes like haloumi - edible flowers and leaves and countless varieties of chilis. Its big specialty is chapulines - fried grasshoppers - although they are caked in so much salty seasoning its difficult to tell that you are eating an insect. So what better place than to learn from an expert how to master these delicious recipes?

The pork man

We enlisted in a cooking course at a restaurant in downtown Oaxaca, which involved a morning visit to the markets to learn about regional foods, buy the ingredients and turn it all into a delicious multi-course comida, or lunch. We were greeted by a dizzying variety of fruits and vegetables, many of which I'd never seen before like squash flowers, guanabanas - a sweet, black fruit that looks like a cactus on the outside and mameys - look like papaya with silky soft orange flesh.

The variety of foods on offer was amazing, with each vendor specialising in a particular food group. Besides fruits and vegies there was the pork shop with rows of dangling chorizos sausages, the beef shop with thin strips of flank steak and the chicken shop with piles of wings, breasts and drumsticks. There was also the dry goods sellers with dried chilis, beans, flour and rice. Interestingly the bags of dried dog biscuits were located in among the other foods, and the same scoop was used for all!

Chicken lady

On the way back to the restaurant we dropped by a shop with a whole row of what looked like massive coffee grinders on their side. In fact, that's exactly what they are but you can get anything you like ground down - in case it won't fit into your blender at home. There were vats of sloppy re-fried beans, tomato salsa and corn tortilla dough. 

Our group of seven - us, an English couple and three Americans, selected chicken with a green mole based on pumpkin seeds, green tomatoes, squash leaves and lettuce. We also settled on chilis rellenas - jalapeno chilis stuffed with a mix of chicken, tomato sauce, almonds, olives and raisins. To start we opted for quesadillas, fresh salsas and avocado soup. Dessert was Oaxacan chocolate ice-cream.

We got to work making tortillas, which apparently is always done first. We rolled the corn dough into little balls and placed it on the tortilla press. You have to carefully lift it out of the press with one hand and place it on a flat pan, for 10 seconds on one side, one minute on the other and 20 seconds back on the first side. On the third flip it puffs up like a balloon before settling back down.

All hands in dough

We made this interesting variation of with small red flowers from a bean plant, fresh cheese and a herb called epazote, which smells faintly of fennel. These were pressed into smaller, thicker tortillas before being cooked.
The tortillas were lined with stringy cheese to make quesadillas. As a bit of a twist, we added squash flowers and chapulines (grasshoppers, remember!) which have a really strong (but great) taste.

The blender got a massive workout in preparing this menu. First it was enlisted to grind up the ingredients for red and green salsa. Red salsa was really simple, just cooked tomatoes, garlic and serrano chilis. Green salsa calls for a special variety of green tomatoes, plus coriander, garlic and chili. We made variations of the red salsa, using toasted avocado leaves - apparently edible - and smoky-tasting dried chilis. Peanuts were shallow-fried in oil and chili and blended, which was an interesting variation. Also there was one variety where we blended worms into the salsa mix!

Molemolemolemolemole

We then blended the green mole ingredients together with chicken stock and cooked them in a pan. Next, the blender turned bright red pulversing baked tomatoes and chilis for the stuffed chili sauce. It went back to green when we started on the avocado soup, which is really simple as it just involved avocado, cream (sort of sour like creme fraiche), chicken stock and a few other spices.

The stuffed chiles were also quite easy to make. There was an attempt to de-spice the jalapeno chiles by scraping out all of their seeds and boiling them for a few minutes although when we sat down to ate them I don't think it was all that successful as they were too spicy for most! We used boiled chicken with the red salsa and chopped almonds, chilis and raisins for the stuffing - which was delicious all on its own and tasted almost like a tagine.

Finally, it was time to make the ice-cream. We used large discs of Oaxacan chocolate, which was super-dark, gritty and spicy because it had already been blended with cinammon and chili. We added evaporated milk and cream, blended it up and then let the ice-cream machine do the rest.

The eating part was, of course, the most satisfying. It was really interesting to see how all of the flavours came together in all of the little steps we had taken to produce the meal. The salsas were amazing - especially the red one with the dried chili and the peanut one. The jalapeno chilis had me guzzling down my juice that we made from dried hibiscus flowers (which interestingly they call jamaica), but the fire was quickly put out with the creamy avocado soup which followed.

The mole was exquisite and surprisingly not too heavy like some of the ones made from chocolate can be. And of course the ice cream, well how can you go wrong there? Overall it was such a diverse mix of flavours, as I said when we went to the traditional restaurant last week its surprising to get such balanced and delicate flavours from Mexican food.

Here are some more pics from the cooking day:

Adam toasting avocado leaves

Making a drink from hibiscus flowers

Making the chocolate ice-cream

Stuffing the jalapeno chilis

All hands on deck

Dried chili gallery

Adios Mexico City - the highlight reel

After 2 months living in student digs in a gritty Mexico City barrio, its now time for us to move on and see more of Mexico. Leaving was bittersweet - on the one hand it got us off our asses and prompted us to see a bit more of the city and catch up with friends but at the same time, I definitely could have hung around longer. Not having a mobile phone was a bit of a barrier to socialising some times. Say what you will about social networking but organising to meet up with groups of people on skype and facebook is nigh on impossible.

We had some highs and lows in our sightseeing missions earlier in the week. Going to the National Anthropology museum, which catalogues Mexico's long and amazing history of indigenous cultures, was a definite high point. It was a great complement to seeing the ruins of Aztec and Maya cities, because it had so much stuff on what life was like, and all of these amazingly preserved artifacts - pottery, jewellery, weapons etc. There were separate exhibits on all of Mexico's different regions and it was amazing to see the similarities between groups that had barely any contact with each other.

Going to the network of Aztec-built canals in Xochimilco, a neighbourhood in the south of Mexico City, was a complete waste of time. It's billed as a bit of a Venetian experience, where you hire a boat and cruise the calm waterways while listening to the strains of merimbas and mariachi music that float by on other boats.

Boat traffic jam

Our first mistake was agreeing on the ridiculous price offered without haggling - 400 pesos for an hour - compare this with 100 pesos for two people at the anthropology museum. And we should probably have guessed that going on a Sunday, the big family day here, might be a little busy. Also there was just the two of us on this enormous barge-like boat with a big table down the middle - it would have been more fun in a group.

As the boat pulled out from the platoon, it quickly became clear that there were far too many other boats all trying to squeeze down a very narrow waterway. After about five minutes our boat was stuck in a giant traffic jam with 40 or 50 other boats, all carrying large family groups who had had the commonsense to bring their own banquet lunches and beer. We sat there drinking overpriced coronas and munching on tough-as-a-board burnt corn cobs.

Lady selling cardboard-like corn cobs

The first half of the tour was spent being jammed in with the other boats while the gondaleers tried desparately to prise the boats free of each other so they could start moving. At one point another boat spun around quickly and ploughed right into the side of ours. It hit the chair I was sitting on, throwing me off it and slamming me face first into the deck. Soon afterwards the impact made my beer topple over and it spilt all over me.

The weirdest thing about Xochimilco is that it comes really highly recommended - at least five people told me it was a must-see in Mexico City. Adam and I were totally miffed - it was sold to us as a pleasant, tranquil experience but floating listlessly on a crowded waterway while being rammed by other boats was not  even remotely relaxing! And it was not exactly scenic, cruising these smelly backwaters that were flanked by the marshy backyards of dilapidated houses. If you came with the right attitude and a lot of beer you could potentially have fun laughing about the lameness of the experience.

We had lunch with some friends from the Spanish course after the exam finished - which most found pretty easy. Later that night we went to a party hosted by two Swedish classmates who are housesitting a friend's place in the outskirts of the city.

The funny thing about this house was that, while it was a three-story palace, it was still undergoing renovation and not quite finished. It had power and water but no stove, kitchen or fridge. It was pretty wild though - everyone was drinking this dubious punch and dancing to really bad 80s music. At one point someone called a couple of cabbies but only one of them left with people and the other one just hung around and joined the party! An hour after he arrived I spotted him carving up the dancefloor, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of punch in the other.

We had a nice dinner with some of the people in our house the night before leaving, which was fun but low key, important considering how hung over we were from the party the night before.

As it comes time to leave this magnificent metropolis, I have been reflecting on the most striking things about Mexico City - it is without a doubt one of the craziest places I have experienced, but also one of the friendliest - it has a big warm beating heart and even though it is one of the biggest cities in the world it doesn't have a cold, impersonal quality at all.

Here are some more weird and wonderful Mexico City tidbits:

The door to door salespeople: there's something kind of cool that in a city with a racing heartbeat, there are still guys pedalling door to door on cycle carts selling their wares. Each vendor has a unique cry, so that people in their houses will know who is at the door. The funniest by far is the tamale man, who sounds somewhere between a crying baby and a power tool with the way he cries "Tama-lEEEEEE."

Another strange breed of street seller are the guys who have these little mobile ovens that look like mini steam-trains. I think they even run on coal. They emit this high-pitched whistle to alert people they are coming, which sounds like a steam train on helium.

PDAs or public displays of affection: for a conservative ultra-catholic country, there is a lot of love on display in Mexico City. It probably has something to do with parents not letting their kids bring boyfriends and girlfriends home. But these teenagers really go for it in public - not just pashing but full-bodily groping on park benches, at bus stops and on street corners.

Boozy cabbies: if there are drink driving laws in this country, clearly the cops are not trying to enforce them. Many people we've spoken to have noticed their cabbie taking a swig of a beer at the wheel while driving them somewhere. Mini-bus, or colectivo drivers as they are called also seem to like a tipple. We sprung one sitting in his bus on the side of the road with all the lights on, chugging back a family-sized Corona.

Road rules? Anyone? Not sure if there are rules on whether you should indicate, give way or stop at traffic lights, but it doesn't seem like anyone cares. Stopping at traffic lights is optional after 11pm, but most people only stop if there are cars in the way. If there are no lights, the fastest car into the intersection gets to go first. And indicators? What are they for? Are they even needed on cars driven by Mexicans?

School's out!

Friday was the last day of our six-week Spanish course in Mexico City. We had mixed feelings about its ending - on the one hand we will be sad to leave such a fun and exciting city, right at the time when we were starting to feel comfortable and make friends. But another part of us is glad that the studying is finally over! It was hard work turning up to class at 9am five days a week, and fitting in numerous homework exercises around our demanding social schedule.

But the best thing about learning a language is that life is your classroom, and the more often you get out and use your newly acquired skills, the more you will learn. I found it a bit awkward at first striking up conversations with people in the house, and strangers especially, when most times I wouldn't understand their response and have the right thing to say in return.

As the course progressed, I realised I was able to chat more comfortably and freely with people, and moved from inane conversations about the weather to more meaty subjects, such as what they are studying and how they are liking Mexico City.

I'm now able to understand the garbled sales pitches from hawkers in the metro as they extoll the benefits of their bootleg merchandise, and when I hear snippets of the news or radio advertising I at least know what they are talking about. Sometimes I can understand the mumbled slang of Chilangos - Mexican City residents - but still only snippets here and there.

All in all the course has been great preparation. We did quite a bit of grammar, but I wouldn't say there was too much of a focus on it. We did plenty of other stuff too - debates on topics such as the benefits of the internet, the role of advertising, the environment and Mexican history. There were also some useless topics such as the merits or otherwise of infomercials.

Next week there are three exams - a written one where I will have to write a short story, an oral exam where I will have to debate a topic with another student and finally a multiple choice reading and grammar exam. I'm feeling pretty relaxed about it seeing as it doesn't matter whether I pass or fail - I'm just here to improve my Spanish so I can communicate better, and I'm not trying to gain access to a higher level of study like some of my classmates. If you complete all eight levels of the course you receive a qualification to teach Spanish - I have just completed level four so there is still a way to go before fluency!

It will be sad to leave the city, and all the people we have met through the course at the uni and also in our student house. Hopefully we will be able to catch up with them when the exams are over on Wednesday, as we are heading south to Oaxaca on Friday morning.

On Saturday afternoon we enjoyed a long boozy lunch with Leigh, one of Adam's classmates with his girlfriend Laura and her parent's restaurant, which has just opened in the trendy neighbourhood of Condesa, not far from the city centre. Eating here really changed my idea of Mexican food. The menu uses traditional ingredients from the south-eastern states, which had well-developed cuisines before the Spanish arrived. Some of the ingredients featuring chapulines, or grasshoppers, which are finely ground and used as a delicious salty seasoning and mole - a thick brown sauce made the original way with several varieties of chili.

The food was delicately arranged on long slim platters, the flavours exquisitely balanced. For entree there was a trio of ceviche - raw fish marinated in citrus juice. One was served with watermelon, another with portobello mushroom. There was also soft pork meat encased in wafer-thin fried banana strips.

Adam had seared tuna with watermelon and eschallot for his main course, while I had a beautifully seasoned quail served with chopped peanuts and a spicy chapulines sauce. Dessert was a coffee, kahlua, mezcal and cream cocktail for Adam and for me,  banana ice-cream with this delicious crunchy crumble arranged on the plate like a sandy beach.

The meal was so different from other Mexican food we have tried, which tends to be very meat and cheese heavy, and almost invariably includes tortillas, even with breakfest dishes like scrambled eggs. This food was so delicately balanced and light that even after a three course lunch with cocktails we did not feel wiped out.

After lunch we hung around chatting, and were then invited up to the bar to taste some of the many varieties of Mezcal that the restaurant had on offer. Mezcal is like a cousin of tequila in that it also comes from a cactus, but it is derived from the maguey, while tequila comes from the agave plant. Mezcal is pretty strong - 48 per cent was the average, and if you shot it back all in one go you would be on the floor pretty soon.

This is probably why Mezcal is so misunderstood outside of Mexico. People try to shoot it like tequila and it totals them. Instead, you are supposed to sip it like whisky and chase it with lime or other citrus, salt and even freshly chopped tomato or tomato juice. Instead of wiping you out, it gently warms you - some varieties more so than others - and gives you this pleasant, happy feeling, rather than an out of control drunk feeling.

We sampled about five different kinds - apparently Mezcal tasting is becoming quite trendy, there are tasting saloons all over the city. I couldn't taste much difference between them, although one was quite sweet while others burnt my throat more. It's much easier to tell the difference between varieties of wine!

Party at the mad house

Life as a student in Mexico city has been, until now, considerably tamer than you might imagine. The share-cum-boarding house that we are staying in is relatively peaceful - except for a pair of noisy Spanish girls who constantly yell to each other across the echo-ey atrium and insist on smoking and chatting right outside our room.

Our limited Spanish made it hard for us to interact with the other housemates at first, and for the first few weeks we hardly saw anybody except for briefly in the kitchen and all we would manage was a quick Hola.

But as my Spanish has started to improve, I have managed a bit more small talk with the housemates, beyond hello and how are you and where are you from. We have an impressive array of nationalities here - besides the Spanish girls, there is a Spanish guy named Felix, a Colombian named Juan, a couple of French, a Japanese guy named Ken, a Costa Rican guy whose name I keep forgetting and a handful of other randoms who reside in the other part of the house we rarely visit.

Last night we were watching TV in the common area - not something we do that often - when we met a few more people - three Germans named Patrick, Larissa and Franci, who spoke excellent English which made it possible for Adam to communicate properly with them.

They had teamed up with the Colombians and the Spaniards, who were cooking Spanish omelettes and making Sangria, for an impromptu banquet on the terrace. The Germans made schnitzel and we supplied our own national delicacy - beer - to the gathering.

New friends...Adam with Patrick and David

After the meal a bottle of tequila was busted out, quickly shattering any semblance of a civilised atmosphere. We put some party music on our laptop and it wasn't long before all hell broke loose. At first it was us and the Germans up one end of the table speaking English, and the Spanish speakers down the other end of the table, but after a while the two groups blended, resulting in the development of a curious Spanglish blend, as the Spaniards dusted off their English and we switched to Spanish.

When the tequila bottle was drained it was quickly replaced by another, and another, and another (don't forget there was quite a few of us). This is the beauty of Mexico - there is always a corner store handy, ready to sell you tequila at just about any hour of the day.

I was handed some change for my (small) contribution to the tequila bottle, and I sung out "diez pesos, diez pesos de vale" - the typical cry of street and subway hawkers when selling their wares. It caught on instantly, and pretty soon the whole party was yelling "DIEZ PESOS!" at the top of their lungs.

Dancefloor antics

The party did take me back a few years - most of the students here are a bit younger than us, and alcohol makes them pretty hyper, but it was amusing to watch the Spaniards busting out the macarena and their flamenco stylings, and to watch people being pushed up and down the street in a wheelbarrow.

Needless to say, Catalina, the lady who runs the house, was not very impressed, but what is a student house if you can't throw a party every now and again?

Here are a couple of shots of the wheelbarrow fun..

Taxco - a new kind of chaos

This may look like the big Jesus statue that towers over Rio de Janiero, but I can assure you we're nowhere near Brazil. This salmon-pink lookalike overlooks a hillside town named Taxco in the highlands a few hours south of Mexico City.

We headed to Taxco for a few days over the long weekend - Monday was the anniversary of the post-revolutionary constitution being signed. This town absolutely defies gravtiy, its buildings clinging to a series of steep cliffs.

A tangled maze of super-narrow cobblestone streets wind their way up the slopes, and from a distance it looks like the white-walled red tile roof houses are built on top of each other. The streets are so steep, you practically have to walk tip toe to get up them because your ankle joint doesn't allow your foot to be flat while you are leaning so far forward.

But this hillside setting and the way the houses are built gives the town a quaint medieval charm, and it looks like it has been transplanted from the mediterranean. It would be a great location to film a James Bond car chase, with the cars screaming through the steep narrow streets and tight hairpin bends.

In fact being in Taxco felt like being transported back to the 60s, because all of the taxis were VW beetles and many of the ordinary cars were too. Some of the turns are so tight that drivers had to do three point turns just to get around, and clipping wing mirrors trying to get past passing traffic.

Most of the roads were only one car width wide and had no pavements, so drivers had to wait for oncoming traffic to clear the street before negotiating the way, weaving in and out of pedestrians. Needless to say some of the narrower streets terrified me, and each time a car went past I flattened myself against the nearest wall like spiderman.

We gave up being backpackers for a few days and installed ourselves in a nice hotel that was right in the centre of town (halfway up the steep hill) behind the central plaza and cathedral. We were given a top floor room, that looked straight out to the cathedral and all of the way down the hill.

Taxco exists in this unlikely location because it is a mining town - it sights right atop a lucrative silver mine, and the ore is processed locally and made into jewellery. The town was packed with Platerias, or silver shops, full of necklaces, rings, bracelets and even silver statues of bulls and jaguars and other animals beloved to Mexicans.

The town seemed to enjoy a comfortable wealth from its silver riches, with all of the buildings well-constructed (ie actually finished - this is quite rare in Mexico from what I've seen) and freshly painted, with ornate balconies made from red tile and of course the European-looking red tile roofs.

But as we meandered further up the hill, unpainted buildings, many unfinished concrete block structures with bits of steel hanging out the top, began to dominate. Many were without window panes, with boards nailed over them instead. Right at the top of the hill there were a few mudbrick houses with makeshift tin roofs.

We discovered this part of town when we decided to hike up to the Jesus statue one day. After we'd zig-zagged up a few streets, we discovered it was quicker to walk up the stairs that connected one street with the next - although this was much steeper and involved walking up about 500 stairs and then another steep road to the statue. But the view was worth it - and from up here the town seemed strangely flat, its streets like little wrinkles the chaotic array of buildings.

Our plan was to leave on Monday to be back in time for class on Tuesday, and we were waiting at the bus stations, tickets in hand at the right time, but ended up missing the bus because it left from a different bay than the one advertised in the extremely muffled announcenent. There were two buses leaving at the same time, and confused, we joined one queue only to discover when we got to the front that it was for a local bus and our bus had left five minutes earlier.

All of the buses were full for the rest of the day, and despite having a cracker of an argument in Spanish (it must be improving if I can politely insult people!) we were only offered a 50 per cent discount on tickets for the following day. The guy's reasoning was that we were the only people that had been confused by the announcement - if there were say five or six people that had missed the bus, all would have been excused and not have to pay.

There was an upside to this tragedy, as we simply jumped back into a VW cab and went straight back to the hotel, which offered us a bigger, quieter room for quite a bit less than we had paid over the weekend, so we enjoyed another day chilling by the pool and sipping on $3.50 margaritas.

Mexico's sporting heart - Futbol

Our time in Mexico City would not be complete without seeing Mexicans in action at the football. Fortunately choosing a home team out of the eight or so teams in the city was not a problem. UNAM, the university we are attending, has its own team, the Pumas who play in the national league.

Puma pride is everywhere in our neighbourhood, a five minute walk away from UNAM's mammoth campus. People walk around in Puma jerseys even on days when they're not playing, there are merchandise stores everywhere and their logo is graffitied on most walls around here.

The Puma's home ground is the Olympic Stadium, which is part of the uni campus. It hosted the controversial 1968 Mexico City Olympics, which were marred by a massacre of student protesters just 10 days before they started.

In the underpass leading to the stadium, we were first struck by the incredible security presence. Riot police with plastic shields lined the perimeter. We were patted down twice before being shunted to the entry way - girls on one side and boys on the other. Moments later, we saw why all of this manpower was necessary - a fight broke out near the entrance, and as the police mobilised themselves it quickly spilt onto the main road out front, stopping passing traffic.

Inside the stadium, fans of the away team were housed right down the end behind one of the goals and were snugly encircled by a ring of police. Our Mexican friends who we came with to the match said there is always a big effort to keep the home and away side fans well apart. Apparently, when Los Pumas play América, the nearest local team, the stadium is divided in half with home fans on one side and away fans on the other, under a big guard of the riot squad.

Nothing actually happened during the match, I guess with all that security and distance between the fans it wasn't possible - but that didn't stop the passion of the home side fans. Most of them were on their feet, singing and chanting during the entire 90 minutes of the match. At the start everyone sung the Pumas anthem while doing the Puma salute - right arm raised at 90 degrees with a fist (fingers out straight would be a Nazi salute).

The Pumas were playing Monterrey - the second-biggest economic zone in the country after Mexico City and home to some of the worst drug cartel violence at present. It was a bit of a grudge match seeing as Monterrey had defeated the Pumas in the semi-finals at the end of last season.

Nevertheless, the Pumas prevailed. When they scored their first goal about midway through the first half, the crowd went crazy, screaming and cheering, then singing the official Pumas chant, while we scrambled to learn the words. Monterrey then scored a penalty goal, which was met with extremely loud boos from the time the penalty occurred to well after the goal was scored.

In the second half the Pumas scored again, a magnificent header off a well-placed corner. They followed this up with another goal near the end of the match, the nail in the coffin for the away team. At the end of the match, everyone just stood around for while - I discovered that it was because the police let the away side fans out first and give them a really big headstart before letting the home side fans loose.

Mexico's sporting heart - Lucha Libre

It is often said that the best way to get a taste of the true spirit of a country is to attend a sporting event. Sport is a microcosm of culture, brimming with fierce pride and nationalistic spirit in both the competitors and the crowds.

What better way to get up close and personal with Mexican culture than watching a few bouts of wrestling, or Lucha Libre, meaning free fight. The sport is reminiscent of WWF exhibition fighting with a Mexican twist. For one thing, its really camp. I mean, with the tight leotard outfits, the elaborate colour schemes, the gimp masks, the amount of oil smeared over participants, who are they trying to kid? Some of the moves, which involve much thrusting and vibrating at very close range, are also highly dubious.

We went to a Friday night showdown in Arena Mexico, one of the country's many wrestling rings. There were four bouts on the bill, each of them tag fights with three or four wrestlers per team, with names such as "La Sombra" (the shadow) "Mascara Dorada" (the golden mask) and hilariously, "Mascara Enchilada" - needs no translation! Here is a pic of us with the Enchilada.

The headline fight was the most hilarious, not just because the moves were more advanced, but because of the soap-opera type story that was being played out between the two teams. There was infighting in one of the teams, where two wrestlers turned on their third team-mate, who had rocked up late to the fight in a poncho.

The pair started attacking poncho-man, and eventually had to be pulled off him by the opposing team. The domestic continued after the official round was over, all the way up the aisle leading into the arena. At one point poncho's attackers pinned him down and ripped off his mask, the ultimate mark of shame for wrestlers. Poor poncho could not show his face to the audience, and just lay there, covering his head with his hands.

The fight continues up the aisle

In the final bout the fighters were joined by midget helpers, one dressed as a parrot and the other in a gorilla suit - I'm pretty certain they were midgets and not kids (fingers crossed). One midget was assigned to each team, but disappointingly they did not get involved in the fighting. They did help out from outside the ring, whacking their team's opponents with saucepans when they leant back on the ropes. Some wrestlers are accompanied by mini-me's - identically dressed midgets who snap at the heels of their opponents during fights.

Wrestling is hugely popular here - this was just a regular weekly bout yet it drew a crowd of at least 20,000. Sections of the arena were enclosed in tall wire mesh fences, where the rowdy participants were sat. Kids rocked up in the masks of their favourite wrestlers, and everyone seemed to follow the masked characters, egging them on or booing them at various times.

Security was pretty tight in the arena too - everyone was patted down at the entrance, and cameras were banned apparently. So we snuck in the iphone and took some pics, which partly explains the poor quality!

From the ridiculous to the absurd

Travel in any foreign country and you are likely to encounter rules, systems and processes that differ to those in your home country and which, frankly, appear strange and ridiculous.

No matter how Americanised Mexico is becoming, it is still rife with quirks and oddities, presumably stemming from its strangely blended colonial and indigenous past. Even my history teacher says that Mexicans have identity issues - and historians don't agree on whether the country was conquered by the Spaniards or whether the invaders simply learned indigenous languages, introduced catholocism and sort of blended into existing society.

Some things in Mexico just don't make sense. Like the fact that everyone, including men, are good dancers, if you peel back the veneer of everyday life, absurdities and oddities bombard you at every turn.

Take the boarding house-type place where we are staying. It is like living in an escher drawing - the one with all of the staircases in three dimensions that don't really lead anywhere. The house is such a maze of rooms and stairs and terraces that it is easy to get lost. When we first moved here I went to find the laundry room - it took five flights of stairs - three up and two down - to reach it. The house has three separate kitchens and even has two street entrances that lie perpendicular to each other.

The Mexican postal service is an other oddity. We tried to send a package containing a present to a friend for a birthday. We put it in a box and taped a sturdy plastic shopping bag over it.

This would not do, instructed the stern-faced woman at the post office, after keeping us waiting a few minutes while she was shuffling papers. For a start, we had to open the package up so she could inspect the contents. Then, it had to be re-wrapped in yellow or manilla- coloured paper which they did not sell so we had to go to the stationery shop and come back.

The stationary shop only had manilla envelopes which were too small to fit the box, so we emptied its contents and placed them inside. This would not do either, informed the postal wench when we returned, as the envelope might break so we were ordered to cut the envelope open and wrap the box in it. Of course, it didn't completely cover the box so I was sent to buy another envelope and tape them together. And throughout this whole drama she didn't once check to see what was in the box!

Our innocent attempt to use the university swimming pool also found us mired in a tangled web of rules, procedure and frustration. We had already obtained the required request form for a medical exam from our faculty, paid the fee at administration, visited the medical centre to obtain an appointment and attended said appointment where they asked a range of bizarre medical questions that had nothing to do with swimming.

The final stage was to visit the swimming centre and obtain a "credential card". It took us about an hour to enter in our details to the computer to generate a code to then enter our details again to get a printed form which would then be used to generate a photo ID card. We couldn't get the ID card because apparently there were problems with the system, so we were told to return the next day. We did, and the system was still down. The following day we found the office shut with a sign to go to the sports department, 2km away in another part of campus.

After hiking there we were informed that it was not possible to obtain an ID card in the month of January, and no credentials would be issued until February. After nearly three weeks and hours wasted trying to navigate the bureaucratic maze, we weren't going to be allowed to use the pool in the first place!

I suppose any time you deal with a government entity there is some level of box-ticking and procedural confusion. It's no worse than dealing with the RTA, only here the computer systems are more antiquated and many offices are still stocked with typewriters. I can only imagine how things work in Cuba!

La vida chilanga

It's been about three weeks and life is sweet here in Mexico City, whose inhabitants are known as Chilangos. The city has it all - bars, clubs, great food, live music, galleries, museums, huge parks and of course, Lucha Libre, or Mexican wrestling where mask-clad fighters do choreographed moves a la WWF.

We haven't yet been to a bout, but hope to get there this week.

There is so much to do here that we're getting to it a little at a time, in between class and daily homework assignments. The class sizes are so small that its hard to slip in late or fake having done your homework. But we are learning fast!

We checked out the Bosque de Chapultepec on Saturday, a massive parkland in the centre of the city that is packed with museums, a zoo and a big castle where an Austrian emperor once lived. This is a nice example of how incestuous European royals used to be. In the 1840s, after Mexico had been declared independent from Spain but during a power vacuum of sorts, France invaded and decided to install Maximilian from Austria as emperor, with his wife Charlotte from Belgium. The castle was built Euro style to accommodate them. Unfortunately the reign didn't last and they were executed.

The zoo was fun, although as usual I was saddened to see so many of the animals living alone in such small enclosures, like the poor rhino with his broken horn. But at the same time there were lots of native Mexican and Central American animals, including jaguars, monkeys, tapirs and curious rodent-y looking things whose names I can't remember.

On Saturday night we hung out in the mecca of the Mariachis - plaza Garibaldi in the centre of town. Mariachi groups congregate here to serenade the public with their songs - each group wearing distinctive uniforms. It's not like an en masse performance - the groups weave in and out of the crowd, charging 80 pesos (about $7) for each song. They also wind their way in and out of restaurants playing music for individual tables. Luckily if you don't want to pay for a song you can always listen on to the music being played at other tables.

The people-watching was the best part. Sitting at an outdoor table of a cheap restaurant, we observed a group of trashed uni students trying to dissaude two of their mates from fighting each other. Old couples swooned around, dancing to the Mariachis while hawkers strolled around selling cuban cigars.

We splashed out on a cuban and puffed away for hours, enjoying family-sized coronas and margaritas mesmerized by the action taking place around us.

Organised chaos in Mexico City

It isn't easy to imagine what a city of 20-something million inhabitants would actually look like. In reality, Mexico City is far less crowded and far more organised than you might imagine.

For a start, the city itself (that which lies in the federal district) is neatly sliced into 16 big areas or Delegaciones, which are then subdivided into nearly 1800 neighbourhoods or Colonias. This makes getting around much easier, when you know which Delegacion to scour on a map for the Colonia you're after.

The city has amazing diversity: the inner blocks are neat and tidy and look just like Europe, with beautiful grand tree-lined boulevards and lots of parks. Trendy Roma and Condesa are full of cafes and bars, while the Zona Rosa is the gay capital and its tackiness reminds me a bit of Sydney's Kings Cross.

In between classes we have been checking out different neighbourhoods - we had a great afternoon out in nearby Coyoacan, which is set around a beautiful stone plaza and super-old church, and has lots of trees and stylish-looking villas. We visited the Frida Kahlo museum and then had dinner and drinks at this impressive-looking Cantina, which was decked out with stuffed bulls heads and advertisements for bull fights (common but not massively popular in Mexico anymore).

Move further out and things get a little grimier, with massive busy arterial road networks and entire suburbs of vertical villages - one we almost moved into comprised 50 separate four-storey buildings, with four or five apartments on each floor. And it was one of about 10 such villages on the same avenue.

The federal district is home to a relatively civilised 8 million people, with the remaining bodies spread out in all directions in neighbouring states. Thankfully, the authorities had the foresight to build an underground metro system when it looked like traffic was getting out of hand in the 60s. The metro is a lifesaver - its possible to get from one side of the city to the other in a hour or less, and not have to deal with any traffic.

Another upside to the metro is that it never fails to entertain. A network of buskers, hawkers and beggars are constantly moving through the carriages, selling their wares, playing music through loud speakers in their backpacks or sharing their hard-luck stories.

You have to hand it to the hawkers - normally they are selling everyday items, like batteries, gum and even childrens toys. But each has their own remarkable sales pitch, which they chant as they walk up and down the carriage. The battery guy (speaking in Spanish) - "batteries, get your batteries, only 10 pesos for a four pack. I got AA, AAA. Perfect for your digital camera, your walkman, your torch, only 10 pesos."

The funniest guy was this stout, hairy creature with an enormous 80's style ghetto blaster who was singing along to his favourite hard-rock classics including "born to be wild" on a late-night ride home. And he proved popular - nearly everyone in the carriage gave him some coin after his performance!

The roads themselves are not actually that bad - I was expecting something as mental as Bangkok. Yes, they are always busy and as a pedestrian are really hard to cross - very few pedestrian crossings and nobody indicates when turning. But no worse than some of Sydney's choked arteries in peak hour.

We have been constantly impressed by the ease of getting around the city. Every time we descend into a subterranean metro station the rumble of the next train approaching is never more than three or four minutes away, even at midnight after a night on the town we barely had to wait.

And I know what you (especially if you are a parent) are thinking - what the hell are we doing walking around, let alone taking public transport in Mexico City after dark? I'm not sure precisely where the city earned its dangerous reputation, but in the areas we have been, it is entirely undeserved. I'm not sure where travel writers were staying (maybe they got the wrong town?) but with so many well-lit areas and so many people on the street, the inner suburbs of the city and even where we live near the university feel just as safe as Sydney.

For a start, there are no individuals or gangs of people just hanging out on street corners. Everyone is going somewhere, or doing something. No-one looks even remotely threatening. We felt far more unsafe in downtown Los Angeles walking to the Greyhound bus station past housing tenements than anywhere we have been in Mexico.

Mexico City mania

Life has stepped up a notch since our arrival in Mexico City, and I'm not just talking about the warp speed with which the belching VW mini-bus "pasajeros" tear around corners.

The streets are like a big theatre, with something always going on. Food is never far away - in many places I've spotted the backs of vans being used as makeshift taco stands.

Yesterday we visited the centre of town, which pulsated with activity, even on a Sunday with many of the shops closed. The main cathedral was packed to the gills with those participating in mass, and those unreligious types (such as ourselves) just keen for a bit of a stickybeak. Adam was most impressed wtih the organ, which took up most of the inside of the building.

Outside, vendors of every persuasion were trying to capture the attention of the masses. There were numerous shoe shine stands - ever popular with Mexicans to keep the cowboy boots polished - and the usual array of handicraft sellers. Men in what looked like old army uniforms played those old wind up accordians, herdy-gerdys, with their caps outstretched.

Several men paraded about in traditional Aztec garb - a big feathered headdress, loin cloth and not much else, selling "purifiaction rituals", promising to rid the body of the participating person from evil spirits. Basically this involves lighting a vessel full of incense, screaming a lot and dancing around the person.

The historical centre was very neat and tidy, with many amazing buildings and museums, like the massive Palacio National, which we spent nearly three hours getting from one end to the other. The design was all European decadence, with state rooms decked out in Louis XIV style chairs, drapes and chandeliers.

The main plaza and the pedestrian malls leading up to it were a hive of activity, packed with people watching street performers - the kind dressed in various shades of metal that hold still until you throw a coin their way. When we arrived at the Alameda - the big park just down from the main plaza, the crowded streets suddenly turned into a crush of bodies.

What we didn't realise was that we were standing near the entrance to a Metro station. A bunch of student-y types had just arrived on a train, and were heading to stage some kind of protest. We thought maybe they were doing a flash mob - especially when we looked to the ground and realised they were all wearing only their underwear (although no G-strings thank god).

One thing we found funny about the city centre was that while we felt totally safe at all times, if anything the only thing we found nerve-wracking was the security presence, which bordered on the insane. There were security guards (in cop-like uniforms) hanging out on every corner, with dozens stationed out front of the main monuments and museums. We even spotted them doing drills in military-style formations.

On the home front, I can report that after much frustration and many broken-Spanish phone calls we have found ourselves some accommodation for the next six weeks. We're living in this curious rambling establishment that is sort of like a boarding house in that other students live there, but is very private as we have the ground floor almost to ourselves with our own bathroom and shared kitchen.

The place is nested in a maze of back-streets, where people have randomly added to their houses, building concrete or corrugate extensions, and everyone has a rooftop courtyard. Ours has a great view of what Mexican houses really look like - they're all neat and colourfully painted in front, but all ramshackle and lopsided in the rear.

City within a city

As the number of cars sounding their horns increased, so did the realisation that we were in the Mexican urban jungle. No longer were cars prepared to slow down and let you cross in front of them as they had in Baja and the Yucatan.

We broke up the nasty 22 hour haul to Mexico City with two days in Vera Cruz, a bustling port city on the gulf of Mexico. It was even invaded by the American Navy to serve as a vantage point during the First World War.

Vera Cruz is pretty gritty, and although this meant that we were the only tourists, it's not a place I would go out of my way to visit. The central plaza was teeming with activity at night time, and we were pleased to watch a traditional dance performance - although I couldn't tell if it were uniquely Mexican or a variation on the flamenco Spanish style.

Everyone was clad in traditional gear, the guys with ponchos, sombreros, cravates and even cutlasses, while the women had big full skirts and twirled around a lot.

The bus trip to the capital was a steep climb into the mountains - Mexico City is 2km altitude while Vera Cruz is port side. Dusk fell as we descended into the valley that is home to the city. The setting sun illuminated the slightly foggy sky surrounding the city lights, which stretched as far as the eye can see in every direction.

We have not really checked out the centre of town yet as we are staying in a borough about 10km south of the city, near the university where we are going to be studying. We took a walk around the enormous campus yesterday, which is a city within a city - home to 280,000 students, it has its own free bus network, hospital with emergency department and acres and acres of sporting grounds and recreational areas. A slightly shabbier version than what I would expect an Ivy League university to look like.

Campus was pretty dead because it was still technically holidays, but the following day it was much busier and had been opened up to cars. We enrolled in the foreign language institute, a relatively straightforward process but it proved to be a real test of my Spanish skills, as nobody spoke English.

We turned up in the morning and straightaway had to sit an oral exam. Adam's lasted long enough for them to determine he couldn't understand a word he was saying so he was placed in the beginners' class. I had to then sit a placement exam with multiple choice questions and a written section - the first exam I have done in about 9 years.

Besides the intensive three-hour per day Spanish course, we also got to pick some electives. Adam's are all language-related, while I chose Mexican history and cinematography - both of which are to be conducted in Spanish.

Even though we typed our own details into the computer system, the admin people still managed to stuff our names up. From now on I will be known as Louisa Kate Burgess and Adam will be Benjamin Adam Homan. They must have decided our middle names are easier to pronounce in Spanish than our given names!

It was really tiring having all of these conversations in Spanish, particularly when we visited the housing office to try and arrange accommodation. The lady there gave us this massive list with people to call about apartments and also families where you could rent rooms on their property separate to their house. I called a bunch of them to ask if I could see the room, which was really tiring - talking on the phone in another language is much harder than speaking to someone in person! 

But the biggest bureaucratic hurdle lay in trying to gain access to the swimming pool. We had to get three forms from our faculty, take one to the central admin and pay a processing fee, then visit the medical centre to sit a medical examination, before taking all of the documentation to the swimming centre and being issued with a sports card. We got to step three before being waved away and told to return in a week's time. So for now we will have to be content with gazing at the pool rather than swimming in it.

10 things about Mexico

 The colours

From the brightly-painted buildings to the Christmas decorations and even people’s clothing, the dry deserts and dusty streets of Mexico are lit up in a dazzling array of colours.

Even hardy, dry-climate plants help to put on the show – bright red and pink bougainvillea flowers are just about everywhere, and even cacti manage to squeeze little bright flowers out from their chubby spines.

The music

You can’t escape the cheery strains of Mariachi music – be it the traditional fanfare with accordians and trumpets, or pop music style. It booms from shops, from taxis and street vendor stands. Even vacant blocks are rigged up with big speakers blasting the stuff.

Music is everywhere you turn in Mexico. Most restaurants have roving musicians pass through them and men walk down the street, whistling their favourite tune. Many simply spontaneously burst into song. Even better, everyone can sing! One hostel we stayed in was in part a works zone during the day, and the dredging noises of construction were drowned out by an immaculately in-tune chorus of building workers.

Ranchero massive!

Clint Eastwood movies might have you thinking that cowboys are an American invention, but surely Mexico was the original Wild West. Rancheros, as they’re called here, enjoy cult status. It’s the height of fashion – just about everyone owns a cowboy hat. Shoe stores have entire walls dedicated to cowboy boots. Some of the best-dressed guys I’ve seen sauntering about town have been clad in big white cowboy hats, tight jeans and long pointy steel caps.

You will never starve

Food. It’s everywhere. From the humble street vendor selling pork crackling chips and hot dogs to taco stands and bustling markets, you will never go hungry in Mexico. The variety, both in flavour and prices, is insane, and varies in each region, even from town to town.

Some of the best food we have tasted was bought for a few measly pesos on street corners and eaten standing up.

Everyone can dance

It doesn’t take much to encourage Mexicans to dance, and any bar that plays music is likely to attract a small crowd busting their moves on the pavement out front. Many towns have dance performances in their main square on weekends, showcasing traditional dances to Mariachi music with the women in full skirts and the guys in sombreros and ponchos.

Unlike Australia, everyone is adept at busting a move, even the oldies. There is no jogging on the spot, or swaying from side to side. People dance the salsa, and couples pull off complex routines they must have practised for hours.

Laaaaaaid back

It’s no accident that the term “Rancho relaxo”  refers to Mexico. From the pace at which locals take to the streets or serve customers in shops, to the rapidity of their speech, it’s clear from the outset that nobody here is in any hurry.

This has an interesting effect on touts – people employed by restaurants, shops and tour operators to attract tourists. Sure, they’ll ask: “hey Senor, what you doing today, need a tour, a taxi? But that’s about all they can manage, and when you say “no gracias”, they’ll either shuffle off quietly or gently mumble a few more things as you walk away. The guy trying to sell us a whale watching tour simply muttered “lotta whaaales” after we’d passed him.

Mexican road rules

First, indicating is optional. Most intersections have no traffic lights and no discernable right of way, unless you count first in, screw everyone else as a road rule. In Baja there is this interesting practice of erecting a stop sign at each way of a four way intersection, but not giving priority to any particular direction.

The willingness of drivers to stop at pedestrian crossings or at ordinary street corners varies. In some places cars stop dead at every intersection and encourage you to walk; in others, they zoom past at top speed.

Gringo love

Mexicans love complaining about their northern neighbours – “get a load of this Gringo, he’s so big and so loud!” But culturally, the US has a firm grip on Mexico.

Mexicans aspire to the big ol’ US of A – the lifestyle, in embracing mall culture and video games, the food, with their love of US burger chains. And of course many aspire to go and live there to earn a higher salary – it’s no accident that border traffic is utterly congested heading north and almost non-existent the other direction.

Annoying and imperialist, yanks may be, but somewhere in their heart all Mexicans have a soft spot for the US.

Law enforcement

If the effectiveness of a police force had anything to do with their visibility in public places, I’m sure Mexico’s cops would win worldwide renown. They are everywhere; directing traffic, cruising up and down in their Policia utes, filling up at taco stands. Municipal or so-called Preventia police – obviously not the ones tasked with reining in the drug trade - are the most visible around town. State police control road blocks around each town, and cruise around on big black motorbikes with M-16s slung over their shoulders. They were searching plenty of cars around town on New Years Eve.

Internet everywhere

The national broadband network has some catching up to do if it is to be as fast and ubiquitous as in Mexico. Even in the tiniest of towns, every single place we have stayed has had free wireless internet, if not in our room, in a common area.

Airports, most cafes and other pubic places also have wifi, and unlike the rip offs in Australian airports and hotels I’ve experienced, it doesn't cost a cent.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

New Years Eve festivities are pretty hit and miss, even if you’re partying at home. In a foreign country, there is a bigger chance that the night will fail to live up to expectations.

For one, you never know where the real party is. Second, you don’t have a big group of friends to share the night with. And while some towns seem like they would have great nightlife, you often find that bars and clubs leave a lot to be desired.

After below-average experiences in Borneo, Vietnam and Perth the past three years, we were determined to have a vaguely enjoyable new years eve. Fortunately our friends Larry and Larna were also in town, so we had company.

We kicked off the night with a visit to an Italian restaurant that made handmade pasta. It was difficult to pick a dish off the bamboozling array on the menu that included fresh salmon ravioli, gnocchi, tortellini and sauces made of prosciutto, sausage and eggplant. Finally I settled on fettucine puttanesca and was not disappointed.

We then cruised the streets to find where the party was at. One of the streets in town had been blocked off and the bars had tables spilling out onto the street. We picked the one with the live music - a singer and a keyboardist covering popular latin songs.

 

It wasn’t long before the street was full of people dancing. Unlike Australia, everybody knows how to dance – even the old men are adept at shaking their booty. It was great to watch couples dancing with each other, effortlessly pulling off complex salsa routines.

I was sitting at an outside table watching the party, when a Mexican guy dressed “al ranchero” with hilarious pointy white shoes asked for a dance, or rather pulled me to my feet and dragged me into the crowd. He was pulling off all the salsa moves – spinning me around, shuffling from side and doing the cha cha, and I attempted to copy. Like most Mexican men, he was a good head shorter than me!

All up it was quite a chilled night. There was no countdown to midnight, apart from the informal one we did at our table – it seems like Mexicans aren’t fussed about the exact timing of the new year. They were too busy enjoying the party.

It was great to see people partying in the street – although I can’t help thinking the real Mexican party was in some other part of town that we had failed to find.

Curiously the main plaza in town was really quiet that night. I had expected it to be a focal point of festivities. The previous night it had been packed out with families watching a clown perform. He had formed a conga line out of a bunch of kids picked from the audience. As we walked over to see what the fuss was about, the clown’s eyes fell on Adam, and within seconds Adam had been dragged into the show.

The clown made fun of Adam’s big feet (they were the same size as his clown shoes), then made Adam pick him up. Then he had Adam stand with his legs far apart, and made the conga line of children walk in between Adam’s legs one at a time.

I filmed part of it – watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6bLJSP12JQ